Secondary menu

You are here

Fraternizing between pollworkers and voting machines banned

I've had this one sitting on my desk top for a few days: Did you know that sleepovers involving poll workers and voting machines have been banned in Ohio? Here's an AP story on the ban
It seems that 24 of the 88 counties in this stateÃ¢â‚¬â€remember the one with the questionable results in the past couple presidential elections?Ã¢â‚¬â€have allowed its pollworkers to take voting machines home for a sleepover the night before the election. This practice makes it easier, they say, to get the machines to the polling place in a timely manner. Not this year. The practice has been deemed an unacceptable security risk.
Here's a quote from the Globe story:
"We want Ohio's voters and the rest of the nation to see that we have prepared a transparent process of transporting voting equipment, ballots, and supplies," said Brunner, a Democrat elected in 2006 with a promise to reform a system criticized for scattered problems of long lines and poorly trained poll workers.
Here, here. Seems sensible to me. And there may even be an upside for my fire friends.
Yes. One pollworker's banned sleepover may be another fire installer's business opportunity. The voting machines will be delivered to polling places the election eve, provided the polling place has adequate security and fire protection in place.

As managing editor, Tess helps oversee editorial content and works on developing a rapport with industry leaders to report and write on industry news, concentrating on the fire and residential beats. She focuses on writing stories important to installers, integrators, manufacturers and distributors. Before joining Security Systems News in September 2010, Tess was a newspaper reporter in Maine for more than two decades. Most of that time, she worked for The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, and also was an occasional stringer for The New York Times. Tess has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and a master’s in linguistics from the University of Michigan. She lives in Maine with her husband and a demanding cat.